1/12th scale rubber tires
 

The classes that seem to be growing at our local tracks are F1 and GT-R. I'm sure there are several reasons why but among them for me is the simplicity and durability of the rubber tires used in those classes. This got me to wondering if anyone knows if any companies are working on similar tires for 12th scale?

I would love to run 1/12 scale again if they were on tires similar to the GT-R tires but obviously smaller. Does anyone else have any thoughts on this topic?

I apologize if this has been brought up, I searched the forums but didn't find much.

Marcos - thanks for the link. Interesting read. Now that the thread is 5 1/2 years old we have a bit more data to go on. Most of the arguements posed in that thread say that rubber tires do not (or should not) perform as well on pan cars as foam. While that is obviously true, I think that with the advent of the GT-R class and the performance achieved in F1, I wonder if those assumptions still hold to such a large degree?

I don't think that rubber tires are good idea for 1/12 and I really wonder why this keeps coming up. I know that F1 are a growing class, but I can't see this for GT-R. At least not on the West Coast or at the IIC. I personally see a problem with the tire size, a typical tire diameter of 1/12 is 41/42 and smaller.
Let's use 41mm rear as base line. The rubber tyre needs at least 4mm hight from the wheel. This gets us a wheel with a maximum diameter of 32mm.:lol::lol::weird:

Foam Tires work great and therefore we don't have to change it.

I do not race 1/12 enough to render an opinion. So I will any way. Rubber tire 1/12th pan car is End of the World talk.

world gt was dying locally, wgt-r killed it completely.

i guess its the evolution of racing for this to happen. the tires are getting better bu ti dont think they will ever be as good as foam.
for spec classes i think the spec tires on black carpet last a very long time if you dont true them to one run spec, and unlike rubber tires, they dont drop off after x number of runs. as long as their is foam on the rim they are good. for club racing you could start larger, 42/43 and get a few days of racing on them, takin them off to save when they get really small for the main or what not.

I do wish the tires were significantly less expensive though. $17cdn for a pair of crc tires is a little silly when im going to walk over to the truer and take off like 80% of it. sell the tires pretrued for less money... its a waste thing for me...

if gtr tire price is any indictation im not sure how i feel about it. if they can sell a full set of tires close to what touring car tires cost, then id be onboard. as with touring car tires, i wouldnt expect the tires to be GOOD for more than weekend of racing. sure they will last and be usable, but if your competition level is high, it will just add cost i think.

it wont stop me from enjoying club racing, but for bigger races id stay away and just run modified i think. then again, with most touring car races pushing a spec tire it might be fun to show up and you get one set of tires for the pancar as well. for $25-$30 this is reasonable, but arent gtr tires close to $70?

GT-R and F1 tires last for months. I have over 100 runs on some sets of tires. So cost is based on perspective. In my personal experience, the cost is justified. Foam will always be more expensive in the long run. That being said, tires are a tuning option in 12th scale. Even spec tires are usually chosen compound that best suits the racing.

Someone, tried making rubber 12th scale tires back in 89 or 90. I know I have them somewhere. They did not have rubber like we have now, so they did not hook up at all. Ended up being more of a shelf piece. lol I started running wgtr a year ago Jan. Still running the same set. TQ'ed today but ended up second thanks to my mechanic. I think I missed 2 weekends, so I have no problem with the cost.
I do wish they were a lower profile though &
I would like to try a set made for 12th's with this compound.

Tom

Here's what it looks like with Yokomo rubber:

http://www.rctech.net/forum/attachme...s-p1010157.jpg

http://www.rctech.net/forum/attachme...s-p1010156.jpg

.....

No rubber for me. At MHIC i ran 2 sets of spec foams in 17.5 the whole time including some practice so 4 quals and a main with some practice. Started at 39.8 front and 40mm rear. I still could do a few more practice runs on them too. Imo wgt-r ruined the class, MHIC had i think 4 or 5 of them. Id still run wgt if crc wouldnt have pushed to make it rubber tire.

I am in the same boat, at the MHIC even tiny tires lasted me 2-3 runs on the front, and at least double that on the rear. Rubber tires are unnecessary.

I personally thought that WGT had a bright future, it seemed like a fun class with durable, quick and easy to drive cars on spec tires. The rounded nose bodies made it such that the racing could even involve a little rubbing without both cars getting mangled, I hope it makes a comeback.

i'd be highly upset if this happens. It sucked that WGT died because of rubber tires

Mine sat on a shelf for 3 years. It didn't die because of rubber tires. It died from lack of interest. I'm just happy to have a viable pan car class to run locally.

Actually, WGT-R came about because WGT foam was dead already. I loved that class too, but for whatever reason, it never really took off. If every person who posted on the internet that WGT was their favorite class, actually raced WGT, then this conversation might not be happening.

There are several tracks where WGT-R is the biggest class. World GT, in both forms, has never been overly popular in the western part of the country.

We took a class that was on life support and tried to inject some life into it. CRC still sells a foam WGT car, tires and body.

We also sell a rubber car and tires.

So run what you want. Judging by what I ship out of here, I would say that rubber has taken over. Our local entries went from 5 foam WGT to over 30 WGT-R cars a night.

Our rubber tires are good for the whole season. I was just in Ohio racing and won on tires that were from the IIC. What is wrong with that?

Brian Wynn

Team CRC

In Myrtle Beach we basically had a group of about 6-7 at our track with WGT prior to the shop unfortunately shutting down. It started from when i purchased mine and kept running it and letting people run mine and enjoying it. I do know WGT-R didnt kill WGT, i just had to put the blame on something lol. I just wish it was bigger as it was my favorite class. Now 12th scale is my favorite class as i've learned more and more about it.

Great dialog, I can only comment on what I see very locally and that is that at the two tracks that I race at there are now two full heats of F1 and two full heats of GT-R. Most of the increase has been in racers from other forms of racing...mostly off-road and per conversation with them it is, at least partially, attributable to the ease of the rubber tire classes to run.

Now before the foam tire purists stand outside of my house with pitchforks, you guys like foam tire and that is cool, others don't and that's great too. Blondes vs brunettes, Ford vs Chevy and cake vs pie. My intent in bringing this up isn't a master plan of 1/12th scale destruction...to the contrary, I would LOVE to race one but when a newer on road racer show up to the track and they see 10 sets of paper thin foams all lined up ready to go versus bolt on one set that lasts the entire season, it is a little off putting.

I don't have any backstory on WGT versus GT-R but I love the GT-R class as it is and likely would not be running it if it were foam so I am thrilled somebody, CRC in this case, stepped up and made the investment in the rubber tires...I surely wish they would do the same for 1/12th scale.

Im against rubber tires in 12th scale only because i dont want 5 stock classes of 12th like we now have in tc.. all these classes suck and are killing the hobby.

Valid point about class splitting. However, with a little thoughtfulness in class design it could be used as a great consolidator of classes....for example rubber tire = stock, foam tire = mod. I know...oversimplified, just thinking/typing out loud.

I think every form of racing needs a "gateway class"...a class that is assessable, driveable, durable and relatively inexpensive to draw as many racers as possible. Of those, some will love the form of racing and progress to the next level, some will hang with that class and some will race a while and sell out. Think the Slash for off-road. Perhaps that class already exists with GT-R???

1\12th scale is and has been the most stable and consistent of all of the on-road classes. I'd hate to see that long run of stability messed up (or even risked) by the introduction of rubber tires. Just look at what has been taking place ever since the introduction of sedans and then their conversion to rubber tires. So many classes are now offered, with so few participants in each. I long for the pre-sedan days when on-road consisted of just 2 classes.....1\12th stock and 1\12th mod. Making the A main in those days was a HUGE accomplishment. Nowadays folks say how great it is when there are actually two full heats of WGTR or F1. Big whoop. On my first trip to the US Indoor Champs, the stock heats started with the A and went all the way down to the P or Q. Making the A (or even the B or the C) at such an event was a huge accomplishment. Such will never happen again so long as there are so many on-road classes to dilute the competition. We have way too many on-road classes to pick from already. I vote NO on adding yet another one and HELL NO on the prospect of potentially messing up the one class that has outlasted all of the others.

If you all want pan car with rubber tires just go to WGT-R

I agree with Perry on this one. I'm currently running 12th scale at my local track in Springfield Ohio. I do have a CRC WGT-R car on order as this class seems to have sparked some interest there and it does look like fun. I will say though that if rubber tire does make it to 12th scale that the class will die immediately. I have talked to and heard many racers say that if and when that happens they will stop running that class. Sad part is that many of them only run that class or type of car. Now you've alienated a very strong core group of racers. Touring car has died because once rubber tires were introduced there were many classes that seem to sprout up overnight. I would hate to see this happen again. I say we keep what we have now and leave it at that. 12th scale is awesome the way it is!!!

That is fine for big races but for local club racing people aren't going to want to burn up 2 to 3 sets of tires per race day. We need a way to make local racing both fun and affordable. I'm not saying rubber tires is the way to do that...as much as I love F1 racing I really don't like the way they handle on rubber tires.

I think wgt died. Foam tire. Because you needed tires to be near done to be competitive. At my track when top guys ran the class it was four guys then rest of field. This takes its toll and interest of other drivers

I think it happens in tc as well. That's why you see usgt so big

After runnin some f1. I must admit I'm curious to see what 1/12 rubber would be like

Years ago. You were able to run tires through the day. Now with high bite you need next to no tire to be competitive. Especially with top drivers in town
This deters a lot of guys from running

I'm curious to what wgt with 25.5 or 21.5 2cell would be like

Trying tires blows. It's slowly dying imo

If it wasn't for rubber tires, my local track would probably be closed. F1, USGT, VTA, Touring and even WGT-R. But all this makes 12th scale kind of special. I recently just bought my first 12th scale kit in like a decade - just to race on occasion when the 12th scale guys show up and at our club championships. Just for fun. But I can't help imagine how awesome it would be to have some mini F1 rubber tires on my new 12th scale. 12th scale on foam is nostalgic and cool and everything but maybe it's time to move on. My local track is small and well suited to 12th scale but fewer and fewer new racers will choose foam over rubber these days. I don't know. This is a tough question. Will the class die completely if it doesn't go to rubber? Maybe.

A poll or survey on the question of 1/12 rubber tires might be interesting.

Richard

done;)

Side note: I would not suggest changing the bodies if it ever goes to rubber tires - no need for that. Properly scaled F1/Lemans style rubber and rims that look really awesome and super dee duper.

Leave 12th scale alone. If you want rubber tires, there are plenty of classes for you.

Personally i like the foam for mod and rubber for stock idea. But the class is fun and competitve, interested to see where it goes.

Class killer for sure. Rubber tires..

Hell I want foams back on TC....

I was talking to my friend about the lol bring back foam tc! Heck the tires are around $6 per box at a main so about $12 for a full set

My OCD will not allow that. I hated chunking a foam tire. Ran fine, just look like (crap)which drove me insane.

Yeah my OCD is that bad....:lol::weird::cry:

I just used to round them off when I cut trued them down ;)

True, also thanks for helping me stay PC. My bad....

I'd lean more towards body choices as a reason for wgt to suffer a bit, usgt has an appeal for that reason alone. What did wgt have like 3 body choices........this ain't Russia!:lol::lol::lol:

Same here, still not a fan of cleaning rubber off my cars but I'll manage.:lol::lol:

1/12 needs to stay foam! End of story! Idk why people want to spec every class to death. If you wanna race a class with rubber tires there are many others pick one. I don't wanna hear the whole foam tires are expensive. It's racing yes some people are going to cut them smaller and go through a lot more tires but that's there choice. If you're fine running larger foam tires and are just there to have a good time great! But to be competitive at the top you'll need to cut them smaller which will lead to using more sets of tires. Rubber tires make cars drive a lot different. I personally like the crisp feel of foam tires. 1/12 is the one class left that you still have options don't spec it to death. It's coming to the point might as well just give everyone a participation ribbon too!

Take your excess foam from cutting, drop some contact cement in it and roll it up into a ball big enough to fill the chunk area and glue it in place with contact cement. Once it's dry re-true it and it'll be nice again.

There were a few more choices than 3 but not much more. And usually only 1 or 2 that would work well enough to be competitive. I agree though the lack of good body choices did not help. Look at what classes seem to be catching on the best lately...those are classes with nice scale looking bodies...not ones that are super dependent on aerodynamics. But that's where my conundrum is...the aerodynamic bodies are the most fun to drive.

Well if there were several options of rubber tires it wouldn't necessarily need to be a spec class. But there in lies the problem...typically with rubber tires there is only 1 or 2 that will work on any given track so it still isn't the tuning aid foam tires are. As much as I prefer foam tires on pan cars...I gotta admit there is some appeal to never having to true tires again and having tires that last a lot longer.